Five residents of the Willow Brook development in Brimfield Township talked with Field schools Superintendent Beth Coleman Wednesday evening about the district's tax issue on Tuesday's special ballot.

The gathering outside the Lewis home was one of several Coleman has attended to talk about the need to pass a 1.25 percent earned income tax for district residents, one of five area school issues on the special election ballot Tuesday.

Akron Public Schools treasurer Jack Pierson gave the board two extreme scenarios at tonight's meeting for eliminating an $11.6 million deficit in the 2012-2013 school year, which balloons to more than $100 million two years later:

Extreme option A: Taxes only, no more cuts. That would require passing a 10.3 mill levy in November that would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $315 a year. If the board puts it off another year, taxpayers would have to pass a 14.5 mill levy costing $444 more for the same homeowner.

Gary Ravani, a recent guest author on the Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog, discusses a 2008 study by the Alameda County (Oakland, California) Health Department. The study, "Life and Death From Unnatural Causes," documents health disparities based on neighborhood, income and race. Ravani takes a swipe at "no excuses" school reformers who argue that poverty is not an excuse for teachers whose students fail standardized tests.

It appears that the medical experts doing the research for this study didn't realize that using the conditions of poverty found in economically segregated communities to explain different life span outcomes is really all a matter of ''making excuses.'' They should have known that dying early results from the ''soft bigotry of low expectations.''

Babcock & Wilcox in Barberton selected four children of employees to receive $1,500 scholarships for up to four years. Recipients are Barberton High graduate Gina Brescilli, daughter of Perry Brescilli, a B&W project engineer; Barberton High graduate Brandon James, son of Theresa James, a B&W purchasing assistant; Lake High graduate Jeff Kikel Jr., son of Jeff Kikel, B&W quality management and welding engineering manager; and Westlake High graduate Andrew Zheng, son of Ruyu Zhang, a lead research engineer.

Through RTT-ELC, the Department of Education will work with the Department of Health and Human Services to distribute $500 million in grant funds to states that develop plans for bold, comprehensive reforms that will raise the quality of early learning programs in their state.

Suddenly a red-caped crusader wearing a white T-shirt and shorts dives into the driver's side window, wrestles the phone out of his hands and tumbles over the female passenger headfirst out of her window.

ATLANTA: Teachers spent nights huddled in a back room, erasing wrong answers on students' test sheets and filling in the correct bubbles. At another school, struggling students were seated next to higher-performing classmates so they could copy answers.

Those and other confessions are contained in a new state report that reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal. Investigators concluded that nearly half the city's schools allowed the cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001.

Four years can slide into five, and five into six, if college students don't pay attention. That escalates the cost of an already pricey college education.

So private Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea is joining a handful of other colleges and universities across the country to offer a ''guarantee.'' If students do what they're supposed to do, the college will ensure that they get out in four years or it will pick up the tab for a fifth year of schooling.

Last month I attended the third biennial International Mind, Brain and Education Society conference in San Diego, which brought together neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists and educators to discuss the latest research in this new field. I've been subscribing to the society's peer-reviewed journal for more than a year now and it was great to meet many of the leading scholars in person.

The Revere Board of Education voted Tuesday to impose a three-year contract extension with its teachers union over the union's objections that the deal, originally reached in March, had been rescinded at the district's request.

The union's current contract was to expire at the end of the upcoming school year, in summer 2012. The three-year extension replaces the final year of that contract and freezes wages and automatic pay raises tied to years of experience, called steps, through June 30, 2014.

BARBERTON: The city schools' treasurer painted a dismal picture for the district's financial future at a special school board meeting Monday night and suggested placing an emergency levy on the ballot in November.

Ryan Pendleton said the district will go in the red by 2013 without additional revenue. He estimates a $1.2 million deficit based on the current level of spending.

•? Gabriela Jocas of North Canton was one of about 150 children nationwide who represented Ohio in a visit to Capitol Hill to tell Congress of the need for better treatments and a cure for Type 1 diabetes. Gabriela, who has Type 1 diabetes, was a delegate at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Children's Congress.